


Loving You is Risky Business

by piratekelly



Series: Cause of Death [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (briefly) - Freeform, Domestic, Established Relationship, Fluff, Humor, Hurt Stiles, M/M, Werewolf Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 19:03:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3989242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piratekelly/pseuds/piratekelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is 24 years old with a college degree, his own apartment, is gainfully employed, and ready to move into the next phase of adulthood.</p><p>But first, he has to clean his apartment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loving You is Risky Business

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to Chiomi, not only for the incredibly speedy beta but also for making my brain do things it didn't want to do. You are amazing.
> 
> Any and all remaining mistakes are my own.

Contrary to popular opinion, Stiles is fully capable of operating like a fully functioning adult. He graduated high school in one piece, finished college a semester early and with only three emergency room visits, successfully wooed one Derek Hale, landed a job as a Deputy at the station in the next town over from Beacon Hills, and has managed to keep himself alive through six months of living on his own. It hasn’t always been sunshine and rainbows, but dammit, he did it and no one can take that away from him.  Which is why tonight, as a celebration of all that tremendous adulting success, Stiles is going to ask his boyfriend of two years to officially move in with him.

He is ready to take the giant leap for Stiles-kind into the upper echelon of true adults. Derek is the king, but watch Stiles conquer. He is absolutely, without a single doubt, going to nail. That. Down. (Respectfully, of course. He’s a lot of things, but an entitled dickbag isn’t one.)

In other words, it’s time for a grand gesture. Adults love those, right? It’s why so many men love proposing with the American Ballet dancing to a piano version of “Never Gonna Give You Up” in the background, followed by a full pyrotechnic segment ending with the proposer gliding through the middle of a crowd of smoke and tulle, riding on the back of a circus elephant.  It’s all about putting yourself out there in a big way. There is no proclamation too large when it comes to those you love most. It took Stiles weeks of late night Googling and subtly asking his father and Scott what they would do in such a hypothetical situation, but the sleepless nights and strange looks are all worth it after he comes up with the best idea ever.

He’s going to deep clean the apartment.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Stiles says to his father the night before said event is meant to take place. “Derek lived in an abandoned train car, cleanliness is obviously not super high on his list of priorities, but I’ve given this a lot of thought.”

John just gives him a look that’s clearly meant to convey that he doesn’t believe Stiles can give anything _any_ amount of thought before acting on it. Stiles would be offended if it weren’t true. But Stiles will not be deterred. This will be the most low-scale grand “move in with me” gesture of all time.

 _Of all time_.

So he texts Derek as he leaves his childhood home to tell him not to come over tonight because he’s got a super early shift tomorrow and really needs to sleep. It’s a lie, but not even a werewolf can detect one through a cell phone. After that he swings by Scott and Kira’s place to pick up the carpet shampooing…thing he asked to borrow. Kira hands it over with a smile and Stiles’ promise to return it before the next full moon; apparently Scott comes home a little doofy from the high of pack runs and almost always tracks dirt through the house when he comes home in the morning. Stiles is not the least bit surprised. Kira just seems to find it oddly endearing, but Stiles knows better. This thing will be back on her doorstep in 48 hours’ time, because she’s a badass kitsune who wields sharp objects like a true ninja. He values his life.

After that it’s the grocery store to pick up cleaning supplies he doesn’t already own, which consists of just about everything but a broom. He spends a solid twenty minutes debating which is the most multi-purpose cleaner in all the land and eventually ends up with a canister of Pledge for multiple surfaces, a bottle of Windex for glass, and Lysol for the toilet. He nearly chokes at the total when he checks out; it seems a ridiculous amount of money for three brands of household cleaners that he’ll probably only use this one time, but he walks out to his Jeep smiling to himself anyway. Money spent on Derek is always a solid investment.

By the time he actually parks and walks into his apartment it’s well after six, he’s starving, and he has no desire to clean. Where he’d once had the strongest of gusts powering his sails a short while ago there is now only a pitiful breeze. He doesn’t sit down, though, knowing that if he does he’ll never get back up, not even to sleep. He’ll just pass out right there on the couch and wake up in the morning uncomfortable and bitter. That moment seems as good a time as any to throw something together for dinner, so he throws some rice on the stovetop and reheats some of the chicken Derek made the other night. As he sits down at the table with his food and a glass of water, all by his lonesome, he can’t help but think of how great it will be to have Derek around 24/7.

Stiles had never really imagined himself living a horribly domestic life, one with a steady job and a partner and a nice place to live. Hell, after Peter attacked Scott, Stiles’ only goal had been to survive high school. After that he’d just wanted to finish college, but somewhere along the way the Nemeton had stopped sending out a bat signal, the possibility of danger decreased dramatically, and Derek showed up at his dorm room on a Wednesday night during his senior year, soaked to the bone with rain, and shaking. Derek had kissed him then, just crossed the threshold, pulled Stiles in by the back of the neck, and he’s been holding on ever since. It had been difficult to be apart after that, but they’d managed alright, and Derek had understood when Stiles had told him that he wanted to try living on his own for real before they became weirdly codependent now that they didn’t have miles and miles separating them.

Now Stiles is ready for a little more permanence, and he thinks Derek is too.

It’s that thought, and all the promise of amazing things to come, that pulls him out of his chair and towards the grocery bag he’d left by the door.

He has a job to do.

***

Stiles wakes up the next morning sore in places he didn’t even know existed.

Cleaning hadn’t seemed so bad when he’d started. Wiping down the countertops had proven easy enough, and he’d even gone so far as to clean under his appliances and not just around them. He’d swept the floors in the kitchen, dining room, and bathroom, started a load of laundry that even his human nose could tell was getting a little funky, and drew up a game plan for the rest of his place. The bathroom would be last, since he still had to shower, so he set out ridding the fridge of expired food. That led to taking out the trash, which snowballed into a lot of stuff making its way into the plastic bin. It’d only taken him about 30 minutes to work up a sweat, so he cracked open a window, peeled off his shirt, and got back to work.

After dusting every possible surface in the living room (even the ceiling fan, okay, this is serious business) he grabbed some paper towels and let loose with the Pledge. It’s a good thing the room will have time to air out overnight because one short blast has left him in an overwhelmingly aromatic cloud of artificial lemon scented chemicals. He can almost taste it, and it is _awful_. It’s joining all his old Chinese food in the trash as soon as he’s done using it.

When he’d been confident that everything in the main area could pass a white glove test he migrated into his room and set out clean sheets for the morning. He made quick work of picking up his dirty clothes, putting away clean ones, and in the process realized that he didn’t really have to do much to make room for Derek’s things. Turns out that living in a dorm room for four years turned him into a bit of a minimalist, because he doesn’t own a lot of stuff that wouldn’t qualify as essential, and all of his posters and stuff are still in his old room at his dad’s. It’s like he’s subconsciously been preparing for this or something.

Or it’s because he’s lazy. Either could be true.

Next he’d Windexed every glass surface in the place, ending with the sliding door that opens to a small balcony. As he moved to shut the door he’d noticed that the track was full of dust and dirt, so he spent the next fifteen minutes doing his best to remove as much of the grime as possible, which lead to him attacking the other windows in the apartment next.

Which lead to an epic scrubbing of every corner that may or may not have dust or dirt in it. He hadn’t been discriminating at that point; if he hadn’t touched it, it was dirty.

By the time he was done it was 12:17am and he couldn’t move. The carpet still needed to be shampooed and he had to see what would need to be done in the bathroom, but he’d been so exhausted that he wasn’t sure he could make it to bed. The smart thing to do, obviously, was text Scott.

_Bro, be here 10am SOS_

He got a jumbled mix of letters in response, but acknowledgement of his request for help had been enough.

Stiles fell asleep leaning against the couch.

***

All of which brings him to the present moment.

***

With a crick in his neck and a desperate need for a shower, Stiles forces himself up off the floor and into his room for a very thorough washing. It’s not like he doesn’t have the time – Scott isn’t set to arrive for another thirty minutes and Stiles needs to be ready for any and all pending celebratory sex offered tonight. When he steps out and wipes the steam from his (clean) mirror, he takes in his reflection and, deeming it suitable enough, gives himself finger guns before making his way into his room to get dressed.

It’s still warm inside, so he just goes with his tightest boxer briefs and a baggy t-shirt. As he starts to put a bagel in the toaster, something very important occurs to him. Stiles is having thoughts. Stiles is having many good thoughts.

Stiles is alone.

Stiles is alone in a very clean apartment.

Stiles is going to have to try very, very hard to keep it that way.

Stiles is going to do something he’s always wanted to do.

He grabs the closest thing he has to a pair of Ray Bans (movie theater 3-D glasses), his only button down shirt, and his cleanest, whitest, most pristine pair of socks. He queues up what he believes to be one of the most iconic songs of all time and walks over to the area farthest from the kitchen. When the all-too-familiar opening piano riff blares from his computer speakers, Stiles takes off, and take off he does.

Right through the kitchen as though he were Tom Cruise himself.

Stiles feels like he’s sailing across the waves of glory, having pulled this off on the first try. There has never been a moment more righteous in the history of all mankind, and one Stiles Stilinski is not about to let himself forget it. He closes his eyes to take it all in.

Fortunately, Tom Cruise didn’t have Stiles’ complete lack of a center of gravity.

Unfortunately, Stiles does.

He’s yanked back into reality when he loses his footing after he stubs his toe on the runner for the sliding door. He’s too focused on the sharp burst of pain radiating from his foot to realize that he’s two steps away from careening over the railing and onto the ground two stories below.

By the time he realizes what’s happening, it’s too late. He hip checks the metal railing and swan dives right off the balcony.

He blacks out before he hits the ground.

***

When Stiles comes to, he’s incredibly sore (again), he’s on his couch, and he’s very much alive.

“Oh, thank God.”

Stiles frowns. “Scott?”

Scott makes his way into Stiles’ field of vision. He looks unsettled, and his hair is a mess. “Dude, what the fuck were you doing?”

“Dude, how the fuck am I _alive_?”

Stiles does not appreciate Scott’s scoff. “The power of true love’s kiss, obviously.”

He groans as Scott moves to help him set up. “How bad?”

“Broke both your legs,” Scott replies. Stiles shrugs it off. He’s had worse. “And also internal bleeding. A lot of internal bleeding.”

He’s about to make some snide remark about Scott knowing that because obviously he can hear the sound of blood pooling under someone’s skin, but then he realizes that the idea isn’t so far-fetched, because he can definitely hear Scott’s pulse and that shouldn’t be possible. Either he’s developed super hearing, or…

“You fucking _bit_ me?”

“You were gonna die, Stiles!” Scott practically screeches, gesturing wildly. “You were bleeding too fast, what was I supposed to do?”

“I’m not mad about that, Scott,” Stiles sighs, burying his hands in his hair.

The fight seems to go out of Scott, because he carefully sits down next to Stiles and gives him a small dose of werewolf pain drain. “Then what is it?”

“I just,” Stiles starts. “I just always figured that if it came to that, it’d be Derek. Well that, and…”

“And what?” Scott encourages. Damn him and those puppy eyes, Stiles thinks.

“And I always figured I’d at least have pants on when it happened.”

There’s a long moment of tense silence before Scott bursts out laughing. Stiles is, well, a little bit stunned. Yes, he’s managed to get himself hurt, and yes, he’s found himself in awkward situations, and every once in a he’s been unfortunate enough to have them happen simultaneously, but wanting to wake up a werewolf that also wears pants shouldn’t even register on their scale of weird or funny. Stiles feels like this is a reasonable request.

“Why are you laughing?”

Scott just continues guffawing, breathing hard enough to remind Stiles that you can take the asthma out of the boy, but that boy can and will still laugh like he’s asthmatic.

“You,” Scott gasps, arms wrapped around his stomach. “You actually thought you’d be wearing pants with Derek all over you like that?”

Stiles has to admit that he makes a fair point. He and Derek live a very anti-pants lifestyle.

Without any warning Scott’s laughter ends as abruptly as it started. “Speak of the devil.”

“You _didn’t_ ,” Stiles groans.

No sooner are the words out of his mouth he finds himself face to face with one very angry and frazzled Derek Hale.

“Scott—“

“Leaving.”

“Wait, Scott,” Stiles calls. “Did I at least look cool?”

The werewolf just rolls his eyes and opens the door. “You remember that scene from Supernatural where Dean gets a piano dropped on him?” Stiles nods. “Like that.”

Stiles deflates. “I couldn’t even look cool dying.”

Derek’s grip on his shoulder tightens, pulling him closer. He doesn’t even register the door closing as Scott leaves, because he swears he hears something akin to a whine escape his boyfriend’s throat and he immediately feels bad. Derek’s lost enough in his life, especially people he cares about, and being so glib about nearly adding himself to that list probably isn’t helping assuage Derek’s fear of history repeating itself.

“Hey,” Stiles murmurs, tilting his head to the side so Derek can scent him, feel his pulse thumping under his skin. “I’m okay. I’m right here.”

“Scott called and I just--"

“I know. I never wanted to do that to you.”

“What happened?”

“Well,” Stiles replies. “Funny story.”

Derek pulls away and levels Stiles with a glare. “I’m not laughing.”

“But one day you will,” Stiles assures. “We’ll look back on this and it’ll be hilarious.”

“Stiles,” Derek growls.

It takes him about half a second to give in. “I just wanted to do something, okay? Like, a childhood fantasy kind of thing.”

Derek exhales heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “You have a childhood fantasy of jumping out windows?”

“No, that’s stupid,” Stiles replies. “And also, it wasn’t a window, it was the balcony.”

“Not helping,” Derek says.

Before Stiles can respond, however, Derek’s head tilts to the left, like he’s trying to focus on something. It takes him a second to realize that Derek isn’t listening to the birds outside, or the neighbors three doors down arguing about the merits of rolling socks versus folding them. (Which, weird, who argues about that? Rolling is 100% the superior method of sock storage.) No, Derek just caught the dulcet tunes of the song playing on low through the speakers of his laptop. His boyfriend gives him a thorough once over, and his face morphs from a look of confusion to one of anger.

“Stiles,” he growls. Again.

“Yes dear?”

“You fell off the balcony because you wanted to channel your inner Tom Cruise?” he asks, disbelieving.

“He revived his career by jumping on a couch, Derek!”

Derek throws his hands in the air, astonished. “You are unreal –“

Stiles takes a step back. “Hey!”

“I’m in love with a raging moron--” he mutters, pacing around the living room like Stiles isn’t even there.

“Let’s focus on the ‘love’ part, okay, just--”

“No sense of self-preservation, _none_ \--”

“Unnecessary,” Stiles defends. “I’m always cautious--”

That seems to get Derek’s attention, at least long enough for him to pull Stiles into one of the filthiest kisses he’s ever experienced. Derek is unforgiving, grip tight around the back of Stiles’ neck as he absolutely ravages Stiles’ mouth, all tongue and teeth and no finesse. This is life-affirming, a desperate need Derek feels to remind himself that Stiles is here and whole and alive. By the time Stiles has the brain power necessary to move this into something that involves a little less clothing, Derek’s pulling away and stomping toward the front door.

“What--”

“I love you,” Derek says. “But I am going to leave, and I am going to collect myself, and when I come back, we are going to _talk_.”

Well. That certainly doesn’t bode well for him.

“But,” Stiles argues.

“Nope,” Derek throws over his shoulder as he shuts the door behind him. “Nope, not gonna happen.” It’s weird to Stiles that he can still hear Derek talking to himself as he walks (not jumps, thank god) down the stairs. “Self-sacrificing, dense, how could he be so stupid? _Tom Cruise_. How—never mind.” He’s far away enough that Stiles has to focus on his voice to hear him, but Derek’s voice is clear even though it’s quiet. “And this dunce is still the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Unbelievable.”

“Hey!” Stiles protests. “I fucking heard that!”

And, well, Stiles doesn’t need to see him to know that the rustling of Derek’s shirt means he’s definitely getting the finger directed at him right now.

Stiles drops back onto the couch and stares blankly at the wall.

So much for the perfect day.

***

Derek comes back five hours later with a car full of his belongings, the accusation that Stiles clearly cannot be relied on to take care of himself in the most basic ways possible, a bottle of Jack, curly fries, and a burning need to reacquaint his mouth with every inch of Stiles’ skin.

(Stiles learns that werewolf stamina is double awesome when both parties have it.)

Later, when they’re sated and Stiles is draped over Derek’s chest aimlessly tracing patterns on his skin, Derek shifts slightly to his right so that he’s looking Stiles in the eye.

“You did a stupid thing today, you know.”

Stiles leans down and kisses Derek’s chest in apology. “I know.”

“Did it really have to be Tom Cruise?”

“It’s an iconic movie scene, okay? Everyone knows Risky Business.”

“Yes,” Derek agrees. “But most people don’t wind up falling out a second story window when they try it out themselves.”

“For the last time, it was a balcony,” Stiles replies.

“Semantics.”

“So are you moving in or did you just pack all your stuff to tell me you’re leaving in the morning?”

“Well,” Derek says as he pulls Stiles closer. “Since you seem to be incapable of taking care of yourself in the most basic sense, permanent adult supervision seems like a good plan.”

“I’ll have you know that I’m now much better equipped to deal with certain death than I was when I woke up this morning.”

Derek sighs and cards his fingers through Stiles’ hair. “We’re gonna have to talk about that, you know.”

“Yep,” Stiles replies, snuggling into Derek’s embrace. “But not tonight.”

As Stiles drifts off to sleep, he thinks about how exhausting it’s going to be moving Derek’s things in here tomorrow, but he just can’t make himself wish for a do-over. He did what he set out to do.

Adulting achievement: unlocked.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find my Teen Wolf blog at muchfic-manypair.tumblr.com COME HANG OUT WITH ME
> 
> Kudos and comments are love.


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